


Right Now

by nevermindirah



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 07:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5448017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevermindirah/pseuds/nevermindirah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve finally got up the courage to flirt with this guy on his morning run. Then before he know it, hot guy's helping him escape assassination and destroy a government agency. And it turns out his new brother in arms is married to the second coming of the love of his life.</p><p>Steve Rogers, born 1918, meets James Barnes, born 1980-something, who had the great fortune to win the heart of Sam Wilson during and after <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/hansbekhart/pseuds/hansbekhart">hansbekhart</a>'s gorgeous <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4195266/chapters/9476418">Make a Thing Go Right</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Right Now

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Make a Thing Go Right](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4195266) by [hansbekhart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hansbekhart/pseuds/hansbekhart). 



Steve knocks at the shabby door of the top-floor apartment. Sam had met him out front, given him a quick hug before heading out to pick up their dinner. He'd just seen Esther Barnes for the first time since 1943. And on the other side of this door is Bucky's grand-nephew.

Rustling sounds come from the other side of the door, maybe James unfastening the locks. Steve wouldn't know that James never locks this door. He takes a deep breath just as the door opens.

"Hi, I'm Steve Rogers," he says to -- not Bucky, but the spitting image. This is James, Sam's husband, James fucking Barnes.

James smiles wide, eyes round, and offers his hand to shake. "James Barnes. My middle name's Montgomery, in case you were wondering," and they both laugh as Steve steps into the apartment.

"I've gotta say, it's a real honor to meet you, for a lot of reasons," Steve says.

"I don't think I have to say it's a real honor to meet you," James counters with a smirking salute, and Steve laughs again.

"You probably know better than the average person born in the 1980s that I'm just a kid from Brooklyn."

"I do. I also know better than the average person how important Sam is to you."

"Is that right?" Steve says.

James juts his chin out. The effect isn't exactly aggressive. "You jealous?"

Steve runs a hand through his hair, looks around the apartment for a beat. "Yeah! I mean, Sam's incredible. I've known him for maybe a week, and he's one of the first real friends I've made in this century." He pulls at a thread on his sleeve. "And yeah, I was disappointed when I found out he has a boyfriend, a -- a husband. Is that why you wanted to meet me alone?"

"Esther told you about the letters?" James says instead of answering.

"Yeah."

James moves to sit on the far end of the couch, gestures for Steve to join him.

"Honestly, it's kinda nice to have the family already know it was like that," Steve says as he sits down. "Kinda nice to have a guide through all this new-century stuff too, Bucky and I -- well, if we'd both made it home after the war, we might've had something like what you two have. I'm glad somebody gets to have that, better even."

"I'm really sorry about Bucky. I, uh," but James trails off.

Steve smiles, small and sad.

Now James is the one fiddling with his sleeves. "Is, um, is it hard for you, that I look like him?"

Steve raises his eyebrows, opens his mouth. Closes it again. "I don't know. Your friend Steve, he looks so much like I did, before all this, and that's confusing. But I'm a little happy about it?"

He looks away, out the stained-glass window, eventually rearranging his shoulders just a touch. "Sam, my new best friend of ten days," he continues, "chose not to mention who exactly he's married to until the night before we blew up the Potomac. He showed me a bunch of pictures of you guys while we were in the hospital."

"My guy has a hell of a bedside manner, doesn't he," James says, smirking.

"That he does," Steve says. "He told me all about you guys, your families, what it was like coming home from Afghanistan. He sat there waiting for me to wake up when I know he wanted to be with you."

James huffs gently. "Oh, we got our thank-god-I'm-still-alive sex, don't you worry about that."

"I've seen him fly, I can only imagine," Steve shoots back, cheeks pinking.

"Why Captain America!" James says, somewhere between teasing and genuinely scandalized, metal hand clutching his shirt. Steve looks over at the stained-glass window like he's already forgotten his innuendo.

"Ok, real talk? Soldier to soldier?" Steve says abruptly.

"Shoot," James says. His face settles in for something serious as he leans forward, hands on his knees.

"Here's where I'm at right now. I finally got up the courage to flirt with this guy on my morning run. Then before I know it, he's helping me escape assassination and destroy a government agency. And it turns out my new brother in arms is married to the second coming of the love of my life." James nods, looks away. "Who, it turns out," Steve continues, "is still alive and has been a prisoner of war for 70 years, doesn't know who he is, and may or may not still try to kill me. I don't have a single goddamn clue what's going on right now beyond what the half-dozen people I can trust with my life tell me, and even then."

Steve rubs at the back of his neck. "I knew Esther was still alive, looked her up pretty soon after I woke up but hadn't worked up the courage to call her. I wasn't ready to know just how the world had gone on without us." He blows out a breath.

"But here I am," Steve says, "so fuck it. Bucky was my family, and maybe he still is, maybe he'll come back to us. Either way," and he looks up to catch James's eye, "I think I'm with family now."

James reaches over to gently grip Steve's shoulder with his metal hand. "You'll fit right in. Welcome home, Steve."

The smile that splits Steve's face reminds James of some of Sam's grandpa's old reels. The ones that show B roll of the Howling Commandos at camp between missions.

"It's probably a good thing," Steve says, "that I can't get drunk, at least when Thor's out of town. Can't go getting all existential all the time."

James nods. "And if you got drunk you'd probably try to steal my man, huh?"

From the hallway, they hear Sam call, "Do I hear handsome men talking about me?"

"You bet your sweet ass you do!" James calls back.

Steve cheats his shoulders towards the door as he starts talking, as if to include Sam in an ongoing conversation. "Sam's about the most open, generous, grounded person I've ever met. Grounded being the operative word."

Sam puts down his bags in the kitchen in time to flip him off. "Hey! Your boyfriend tore my fucking wings off!"

"Don't I know it. Did he tell you," Steve says to James, "that he dove out of the 41st floor of a building, no wings, no chute, into a helicopter 20 yards below?"

"And my great-uncle-in-law here dives out of planes with no chute all the time, like it ain't no thing."

"Is that what we're calling me now?" Steve says, scoffing.

Sam claps at Steve's back, tugs him into a loose headlock that's maybe a hug. They tussle and push at each other like old friends.

James ditches their squabbling for the stack of takeout containers across the tiny living room. As he fishes out a few pad Thai noodles, he says, "So, uh, my best friend's name is Steve Rogers too. We're gonna need nicknames."

* * *

Later, after a great meal and a long story about the other Steve, nickname forthcoming, threatening to pick a fight with half of Manhattan at Sam and James's engagement party, Steve stands. "Excuse me," he says. "Where's your bathroom?"

"Through there, to the left," James says, pointing with his gleaming hand. As Steve leaves the room, James snakes his other hand up his husband's back. Sam leans into him.

"So what do you think, honey pie?" Sam whispers into James's ear.

James murmurs back, "Wouldn't be the first time we had a threesome with a Steve Rogers."

Steve's shoulder bumps into the bathroom door frame down the other end of the tiny hallway. His neck is bright red, plainly visible to his hosts over on the couch. He pauses. Steve can feel Sam and James staring at him but can't quite imagine the looks on their faces.

He turns around and gives them both a salute, an off-kilter smile on his face. His very, very red face.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so deeply in love with [Make a Thing Go Right](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4195266/chapters/9476418) by [hansbekhart](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hansbekhart/pseuds/hansbekhart) that I couldn't let it go until I'd written a little something to consider where Sam would be on the other side of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I couldn't stop thinking about Steve, Captain America Steve, what it would be like for him to become friends with this Sam. So many thanks to Hans for letting me play in her universe! This fic briefly refers to her also-gorgeous [Kings County](http://archiveofourown.org/series/233079) series. You'll want to grab some tissues and read that to find out just why Steve would need a hug after his reunion with Esther Barnes.


End file.
